


Seperated

by Bloody_Destination



Series: Dark Ace Series of Connected Drabbles [5]
Category: Storm Hawks (Cartoon)
Genre: Ace's Abandonment Issues, Gen, Kid Dark Ace, Original Storm Hawks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-07-10 05:45:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19900786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bloody_Destination/pseuds/Bloody_Destination
Summary: Lightning thinks Ace should have a somewhat normal childhood. Ace has trouble adjusting and hurts some people.





	Seperated

Ace meets Mimi the day before he turns eight, marking the seventh month he’s been on the Condor. He doesn’t know who she is. Other than the fact that the Storm Hawks know her because they’ve landed on Atmos’ capital Terra and she comes on board before any of them have time to pack up their thing for a well-deserved shore leave.

He quickly finds out just who she is when the little brown haired woman walked right up to Lightning and kisses him on the lips and the man responds by wrapping his arms around her. Ace makes a gaging sound before the two can split apart. They stare with red faces down at him as if they didn’t even notice he has been beside Lightning the entire time. Then they laugh and the woman is bending at the waist to get a better look at him.

“Well look at you.” She says softly, hazel eyes meeting his red, “Lightning told me about you, but he never mentioned how cute you were.”

He wants to growl at her, correct her and say he isn’t _cute_ but the heat rising rapidly to his cheeks stops him in his tracks. She ruffles his hair and cues again. She straightens up slowly, first taking Lightning’s hand, then Ace’s – who is too surprised to stop her – as she leads them both outside. She babbles aimlessly and it’s almost as if there is another Lightning in female form because they talk incessantly about nothing in almost the exact same manner. It scares Ace to the core.

She switches her hold from his hand to around his shoulder and then Lightning is putting an arm around her middle. It feels so familiar, Ace thinks, to how his mother and father would walk with each other, would hold each other when he came for visits. But all he has to do is look to see brown hair instead of blonde and red hair instead of black and he knows he will probably never have his mother and father back again.

But the woman, Lightning’s fiancé, is lively in a way that his mother had never been. She’s not a fighter, but a girl who grew up in the capital, ran away from home, was rescued by Lightning after her skimmer crashed, taken back home and then for several months was visited by that same Sky Knight before he rightly proposed. That had been over a year ago, but the two had yet to have the time for the wedding. Mimi was sick half the time and Lightning was off fighting a war the other half.

The three spend the entire day together, which puzzles Ace. The time that they could have been spending together, they spend with Ace. They take him to the park, take him shopping to replace the clothes he had either grown out of or to replace the overly large clothes he was borrowing from the other Sky Knights. They take him out to a restaurant which Lightning knows he would like, over his or his fiancé’s own preferences.

A day, which should have been spent between the couple, was instead spent with a kid Lightning barely knew and a kid Mimi had only just met that day. Instead of staying overnight on the Condor with the other Sky Knights, the two put him into a guest bedroom in their own home. It’s shocks him enough to not question it.

It is early morning when Ace wakes up that he finally understands. It’s well past the time the Condor should have been on it’s way back to the battlefield when Ace jumps from the bed and races to the living room, only to see Mimi busy at the stove and Lightning no where to be found.

“What’s going on? Where’s Lightning?” She meets his eyes with a hesitant sort of smile as she places the last of the food on the kitchen table.

The house is small, the living room barely enough room for more than four people, with the kitchen against one side of the wall and a table pushed up against the adjoining wall. They are close enough that Ace can see the way her eyes flicker with guilt and the hesitation in her step before coming towards him.

“Ace, come sit down.” She takes his hand and leads him to the table, “There’s something we need to discuss.”

Despite saying this, she sets him down in the chair and wordlessly gets him a plate, filling it with eggs and sausage, setting a cup of orange juice in front of him as well, before doing the same for herself.

“Eat, sweetie.”

“Don’t call me that.” It sounds harsh even to his own ears, especially since just the day before, every nickname she called him sent a blush to his checks and neck, easily noticeable against pale, Cyclonian skin.

He doesn’t apologies though as he picks at his food, taking small bites but otherwise, the food remains untouched. He thinks he already knows. Lightning left, had planned on leaving without him since the beginning. Once more, a man he considered his father has left him alone. The worst part is, he doesn’t even have his mother with him, just a strange woman, playing a terribly awful motherly figure.

She’s trying though, he notices. But she doesn’t know how. She sends him a confused, hesitant gaze every few minutes. She opens her mouth to say something, but then closes it again. She swallows her food loudly and clears her throat every so often.

When it’s clear he isn’t likely to eat any more than what he already has, she finally sets her own fork down, “Lightning left early this morning.”

Obviously, he wants to say, but doesn’t. The way she swallows though has him thinking his look more than makes up for the fact he kept silent.

“You’re just a child, Ace. You need stability this early, not constant war zones. Both myself and Lightning thought it would be a good idea for you to finish your schooling before deciding on what you want to do with the rest of your life, whether that means becoming a Sky Knight or following a different path. We both just want what is best for you, Ace.”

It’s pointless fighting against her. Even if he did, he has nowhere to go, no source of income or way to get off the Terra. With Lightning’s reputation, he was able to pull some strings and get Ace into one of the best schools in Atmos, Mimi tells him. He just hums to her, barely listening. There are children his age and he really doesn’t care because the last children he actually played with was two years ago and he was still in Cyclonia. He doubts the children here are any different from the ones on Terra Millus.

She takes him into town, later that day, to visit the school he’ll be starting in a week. It’s a large building that looks more like a prison than an actual school. The children are all older than him, but Ace has been doing schoolwork meant for children twice his age under Nimbus’ tutelage. Apparently, all those tests Ace has been doing for Nimbus were sent by the school as entrance exams and of course he passed with flying colors. If Ace had known, he probably would have purposely failed them, and Lightning probably guessed that already.

They have him fill out paperwork and ask dozens of questions of which Ace halfheartedly answers and thinks of how much he hates how foolish he was for believing Lightning actually cared for him. Just enough that he wouldn’t abandon a homeless orphan on any number of Terra, but not enough to want to keep him by his side.

As they walk back to Mimi’s home, she hesitantly places a hand on his shoulder and he shrugs it off as soon as he feels the contact. She doesn’t try after that, instead walks in awkward silence.

Not for long though, “So, you’re eight today?”

He raises an eyebrow at her and she quickly adds, “I just noticed when you were filling out paperwork. You should have said something.” Then more quietly to herself, “Of course, Lightning wouldn’t have asked you about your birthday.” Then again louder, “Let’s do something special. Do you like art? There’s a nice museum downtown. Or what about your favorite food?”

“I would like…” He says before she can ramble on, “…to go to sleep. I’m tired.”

Despite it only being a little after lunch time. She tries to coax him to do something, anything, other than spending his birthday locked in a room by himself. But he remains quiet and all the woman can really do is follow a half step behind the boy, leading the two back to her home. As soon as she unlocks the door, he’s rushing inside and making his way to the room he’s been given for his extended stay.

She told him earlier that it’s his to use and decorate as he pleases. But he hates it already and wishes more than anything to never see it again. But he has no choice but to return considering he has nowhere else to go now if he doesn’t want to see that woman’s face.

He doesn’t sleep, despite what he says, nor does he move when she knocks on his door later that night to coax him out for dinner. He feigns sleep and doesn’t answer, waiting for her to leave after several long minutes. He doesn’t sleep at all through the night and from the sound of it and the invading light underneath his door from outside his room, neither does Mimi.

When morning comes, he still doesn’t come out, nor does he answer when she knocks, “Ace, please open up. You barely ate yesterday, and it isn’t healthy for a child your age to miss so many meals. Please.”

She again uses that awkward motherly voice, one she isn’t used to and too hesitant to sound even a little affective. It’s as if she’s never spoken to a child before.

He goes stiff when the door opens after a few seconds of silence. He hears a few steps before they stop and a clink sound from the little table against his wall next to the bed. Then the footsteps retreat, and the door shuts once more. He turns his head around to look at the table. A plate of food sits there, still lightly steaming.

The smell actually makes his stomach churn painfully from lack of food and he can’t help but sluggishly getting up from the bed and moving over to where the plate sits. She’s a really good cook and he can’t help but eating all of it. He knows, now that he’s up, he won’t be able to lie back down. He’s too antsy and he needs to work off some steam. But he can’t spar with Mick anymore and he can’t fly with Lightning. Nor can he work with Joshi on the Condor until all he thinks about is the grease on his hands the metal under his fingers.

He takes the plate with him as he leaves the room. Mimi is on her feet in a second, standing awkwardly next to the couch, watching his trek from room to sink and continues to watch as he washes the plate thoroughly, then turns to her and they silently stare at each other.

She opens her mouth several times, but no words come out, so Ace speaks up first, “I’m going out. I’ll be back before dark.”

He doesn’t wait for an approval or denial as he leaves. The road is made of a solid stone, not the metal of the condor that he’s used to. It’s cloudy, instead of clear blue when the Condor would ride above the storm clouds. Everything is so still, so unlike the gentle sway and the heavy rocking of the Carrier. It’s all so different, all too much and Ace hates it, because he was finally getting used to life without his mother, finally happy after two years of one horrible event after another.

He walks for hours, thinking of where he might have gone wrong, of what he did that might have made the Storm Hawks not want him, made them lie to him about wanting him. He’s smart enough, self-conscious enough to realize that he has abandonment issues. How can he not after a life of his father constantly leaving his mother and himself, of his father’s final good bye and his mother’s probable death.

It’s already fully dark by the time he finally comes back to himself and he makes his way back to the house. He isn’t even to the door when it bangs open and a teary eyes Mimi is looking down at him.

“Your late!” Snot and tears ruin the stern look she was going for, “It’s hours past dark! Do you know how worried I was? What if something happened to you?”

She pulls him inside by the arm, places him on the couch, “You probably haven’t even eaten anything since this morning. Your covered in dirt. Why is your elbow bleeding? Ace, talk to me. _Please._ ”

She stresses the last word and more tears role down her face. He honestly doesn’t know why she’s crying so much. She doesn’t know him. Has barely spoken to him for more than a handful of times. Just met him three days ago. She’s a lot like Lightning, again, Ace thinks. Lightning got attached to him in just one day and his fiancé is no different. He doesn’t understand why though, considering she’ll likely abandon him too, just like everyone else Ace has ever loved. But he doesn’t want to care about this woman.

“I’m fine.” He answers, “I just fell.”

She barely listens as she rushes to find a first aid kit. It’s small and doesn’t at all compare to the one Wing has tucked in his room, the very similar one gifted to Ace by that very same man. She uses a year expired store-bought salve that he likely could have made ten times better from scratch with a few plants on the Condor. She bandages it, tied together with a sad looking knot that will likely fall off in a little less than an hour. But he lets her because with tears running down her face, he can picture another woman with those same tears from two years ago and he can’t bear to think about it, so he remains still and silent.

When she’s done, she puts him at the table to says he can’t leave until he finishes all the food on his plate. He does so quickly, probably far quicker than she thought it would take because when he looks at her expectantly after scarfing down his food at an unhealthy pace, she freezes and then excuses him stiltedly.

The week passes similarly. Though, after the second time of Mimi bringing his breakfast into his room, he’s chosen to get up early. While he does not like the room he’s stuck in, he would rather she not invade the only place that is actually his. She somehow understands and stays far away from his door after the fourth morning, just as long as he eats meals at an appropriate time. The fifth day, she nearly bans him from leaving the house unless he comes back for lunch, arguing his health and proper meals for a growing child.

He’s properly threatened because he can’t imagine being stuck in that house for the entire day, with that woman. He gets into fights often, in town with other children, older and younger both. They see his pale skin and ink colored hair and those crimson eyes. They call him derogatory terms, half-blood, Cyclonian dog and several dozen other names he’s never heard of before.

Most often, he wins the fights because he was trained by the best squadron known to Atmos and he doesn’t plan on loosing to a bunch of kids. It isn’t long before parents are complaining to Mimi and he’s banned from leaving the house anyway. She says it’s not his fault anyway. She just doesn’t want him fighting.

“When school starts...” She moves to pet his head then freezes and joltingly rubs her hands together, “…it’ll be better, and you can start making some friends.”

She’s wrong because those kids are older by six years and it’ll be worse because they’ll see a kid that’s not even half their age taking the same classes and they’ll feel threatened. On Terra Millus, those kids were his age and yet they still despised him because he was different. She’s trying, he finally tells himself and all he can do is sigh before eating the dinner she insists they have together then hiding in the room.

School is worse than he thought. They look at Ace as if he’s less then dirt. The teachers ignore him, and slurs are shot at him on an hourly basis. He doesn’t give it much thought, other than the fact that he hates it here. At least in school, the older kids don’t outright try to attack him like the ones on the street do. The school is prestigious and there is a zero-tolerance policy for fights or outright aggressive actions. But the slurs slip by, even when teachers are present to hear them.

He’s a Cyclonian, not just by birth, but raised as one for most of his life, so far. The war has taken a heavy toll on many of Atmos, less, though, on the people so far away from the actual war zone. None of these people have known loss like those on the Terra further out. They’re all pampered here, and Ace hates them for it. Hates that they look down on Cyclonians, look down on the Terra and their people caught dead center of the war, even going so far as to look down on the mostly uneducated Sky Knights on the front lines.

Mimi tries to ask him how his days in school are. He answers with a brisk _‘fine’_ and then goes to his room to wait for dinner.

It’s a month into his classes and he’s already proven smarter than the rest of his classmates and they all thoroughly hate him just as much as he hates them. He mocks them back now, with ammo to spare. Questions their right to attend the school when a child nearly half their junior far surpasses them. Mocks their parentage, and the Cyclonian superiority. He likes unnerving them, noticing their unease at his red eyes.

It is also after that month that he comes back early from one of his weekend walks around the city. Mimi refuses to let him walk around on a school night considering he loses track of time so often. But he catches himself. He’s exhausted and he just wants to sleep. The sun isn’t even set yet when he reaches the front door. He’s silent, always silent as he goes in, because if she doesn’t notice him then he doesn’t actually have to talk with her. She’s not in the living room or kitchen when he walks in, but the light in on in the master bedroom so he moves silently as he heads to his own.

He freezes on the spot when he hears a sob, “I just don’t know what to do, Lighting. He hates me.”

He can only faintly hear a voice answering back to her and she sniffles, “He doesn’t talk to me. How am I supposed to get him to talk to me? Am I a bad person?”

He moves closer to the door, because, despite what he thinks of the brunette woman, he can’t stand it when she cries because it reminds him too much of his mother so long ago.

“Of course, you’re not, sweet heart.” He hears the unmistakable voice of Lightning, “He just needs time to adjust. He’s been through a lot. It’s my fault anyway. I should have explained things instead of just up and leaving.”

“You would have given in if you hadn’t. He’s too smart for your own good.” She says and it is most likely true. Since the beginning, Lightning had never been able to tell him no, “I thought this would be easier. Why did I think this would be easier?” She’s lying on her side, facing away from the door, the communicator lying next to her in bed, “He’s so young. Maybe if he’d known me for longer.”

“Don’t do this to yourself. I’ll come back as soon as possible, I promise. Maybe he just isn’t ready, but I’m sure he just needs some time to get used to you.”

Her body is racked with sobs, “But he still won’t like me.”

“He’s young.” Lightning tells her and it sounds like the Sky Knight is also close to tears, listening to the love of his life balling her own eyes out.

“I just want to be a good mother. He’s like son to you and I want more than anything to have a child with you.”

Theirs silence on the other end, “I told you, it’s fine, Mimi. I’m happy with you and I’m happy with Ace. We don’t need a child of our own.”

“But you want one and I can’t give you one.”

Ace feels like a terrible person for listening in, even more so hearing such a personal conversation between the couple.

“Ace loves you so much.” She continues on, “You’re practically already his father. I just want the same thing.”

Ace moves away from the door slowly and back towards the front. He purposely opens it with as much rattling of the doorknob as possible, then shuts it decently loud and the sound of scrambling and the bedroom door being shut is heard. Before he again moves further into the room and towards his own. In her state, she probably doesn’t realize that for once he actually made noise coming in and he doubts she’ll question it later.

For once, it’s Mimi holed up in her room, refusing to come out, or even speak a greeting to him. He doesn’t waste time moving to his own room and collapsing onto the bed, wide awake and yet completely exhausted. It actually kind of makes sense how quickly the two attached themselves to Ace. It’s also isn’t all that hard to understand the meaning behind the conversation. For some reason, the couple are unable to have a child.

Ace buries his head into the pillow. He hates how guilty he feels. Knows how awful it is to not have a family. He’s been such a pain in the ass, hasn’t he, he thinks. All she’s done is given him a place to stay and possible a future outside of a single occupation. Lightning has tried to speak with him, but each time, Ace has refused the communicator. He speaks with Mimi only as much as he has to, probably even less than that if he’s being honest.

Yet another restless night greets him.

When morning comes, he’s up early, moves a stool over to the oven and quickly the smell of eggs and bacon fills the house. One of the thing Wing taught him as the resident cook on the Condor. If not for his instinct to freeze in an instant, he probably would have thrown the plate of eggs high into the air when he turns towards the table and the slacked jawed Mimi is what greets him.

“Good morning.” He greets tersely. He sets the plate on the table then returns to the counter for the bacon and cups, going to the fridge after and poring the orange juice before sitting himself down and eating.

She’s still watching him with her mouth hanging open and confusion written on her face. He starts eating without her. It takes her a good few moments before she jolts into movement and places herself across the table from him. It’s completely silent, even more so than usually and Ace can’t help but feel he’s made some type of mistake.

“It’s good.” She says, and she’s actually finished before Ace for a change, considering she ate both her eggs and bacon in only three bites.

“I want to go out today.” He says after washing his breakfast down with the rest of his juice.

“…it’s a school night, Ace.” She begins, hesitantly, the voice that usually means she’ll give in if he presses hard enough.

All he does is clear his throat, “I was hoping you would come with me. The art museum you told me about requires adult supervision.”

There is a very distinct pause, all tense limbs and clenched jaw, and the next she is out of her set in a second.

“Of course!” In her rush, the chair is nocked over as she franticly grabs her shoes, hopping around as she puts them on, “Where’d I put my purse!”

She’s running around the room, looking for her missing purse and wrapping a scarf around her neck, talking faster than Ace can comprehend. He assumes she’s describing different exhibits at the museum but she’s just rambling at this point. She’s only has one shoe on and her hair up while missing several large locks of it when she’s at the door looking like a puppy about to go for a walk.

“Ready?” She asks far too eager.

All he does is raise an eyebrow from where he is still sitting, still at the table. She takes this moment to pause and take in the fact that its barely past seven in the morning, the museum is likely not yet open and they are both still in their pajamas. She laughs nervously as she finally realizes this.

“Oops?”

When she’s finally calm, Ace decides to get up from his chair and begins taking the dishes to the sink, scoots the stool over and start washing the dishes. She makes several attempts at helping but his tiny body surprisingly makes an effective shield against her. When he’s finished with the dishes, he moves on to the rest of the room. She’s terribly messy, which is surprising, compared to her neat freak of a fiancé she has.

It’s still shocking how different they are and yet how similar. Their personalities are exactly the same, but their actions tell a different story. Mimi can’t seem to not make a mess while Lightning cleans his cleaning products. Mimi has trouble just tripping over her own feet, let alone riding a skimmer and not crashing after the first five minutes, while Lightning is one of the best-known pilots to ever live. Not to say that the brunette is the only one with issues. Lightning can’t cook a dish to save a life, while Mimi’s cooking is some of the best Ace has ever tasted. Lightning’s ability at discerning directions is appalling for a pilot, while Mimi has the uncanny ability to find Ace no matter where he is on the large Terra of Atmosia.

Ace still can’t tell if this is a learned behavior the two have picked up from spending so much time with each other, or if they are just naturally so…out of sync that they are eerily just meant for each other.

As he cleans, he begins asking the woman questions, “What’s the museum like?”

“It’s not too big, just a few exhibits, but they change every month for new art.” She went on to explain past exhibits and the current ones.

Their conversation is stunted, at best, but Ace pushes past the discomfort of talking to a woman he has basically been ignoring, bordering on antagonizing, for over a month now. Whether he likes it or not, whether what he heard the night before changes anything, he’s stuck here for the foreseeable future and there is nothing he can really do about it. Why make this more difficult than it has to be? Why push the only people he has left away?

He pauses in his cleaning as he looks back at her after she goes off on yet another tangent that had literally nothing to do with one of his off handed questions, “Did you say something about a Sky Knight museum?”

“Yes. It’s not too far from here. Do you want to go see it? It’s on the way to the art museum. We can go to both. There are so many places in the city. We can make a day trip of it!”

He neither agrees nor disagrees, instead, making a noncommittal noise and turning back to the filthy window in dire need of a scrubbing. She says something about Lightning usually doing all the cleaning, but the war has made his visits few and far between. He can tell that it’s put a strain on her. She’s sick constantly, he realizes, now. He knew from a few of the comments Lightning made when he was still here. But it only sinks in now, after a month of being here that on certain days, she doesn’t make breakfast, where she doesn’t come out of her room until after he returns from school. On those days, the bags under her eyes are dark and sunken.

He’s such an asshole, Ace thinks again, internally berating himself.

Life gets easier after this. He still ignores Lightning’s constant plead for Ace to speak to him. But Ace thinks this is just punishment for abandoning him without talking with him first. Lighting visits a total of once during winter break and stays for only a day, but he brings presents. He’s heard from nearly nightly talking over the communicator that the two have begun to get along a lot better, but to actually see the two cooking in tandem in the kitchen is something else.

From Lightning, Ace gets his first energy blade. Its Crystal is weak and only feels warm to the touch. It’s more of a toy than an actual weapon, but Lightning promises to upgrade the Crystal when he actual learns to use it. He remembers the blade drills Mick ran him through on the Condor. He promises to practice, and he does, every day after Lightning leaves back on the Condor. He goes into the backyard, small though it is, but enough for him and practices until his muscles ache. It quickly becomes his new hobby, rather than aimlessly wandering around the Terra and getting into fights…mostly.

School goes on the same, but it gets easier to ignore the constant picking by his classmates when, after school one day, a few of his classmates had surrounded him. They’d quickly learned to regret picking on him when he nearly broken one of the student’s toes, gave another a blackeye and bloodied a third’s nose. No one actually admitted what happened, considered they’d be admitting to being beaten up by an eight-year-old in a three to one fight. But to most of the school, everyone knew.

Winter turns into Spring and then into Summer and on Ace’s last day of school, Lightning is waiting outside of the building and walks him home. Ace has a bounce in his step because it’s been nearly five months since the last time they saw each other and Ace doesn’t think he can stand another five months away from the man who is slowly becoming the father he’s always wanted.

“I, and the other Storm Hawks have been talking, and Mimi agrees with us as well.” He scratches the back of his neck and smiles sheepishly. It’s summer after all, and you’ve been practicing a lot. Mimi’s told me.”

He’s rambling but after so long spent in the two chatter boxes’ presence he’s learned how to get a conversation back on track, “You’ve talked about what, Lightning?”

“How would you like to spend your summer break on the Condor?”

Ace actually trips, doesn’t fall but it’s close and Lightning has a firm hold of his shoulder. Of course, Ace agrees, embraces Lightning in a tight hug and absolutely, most certainly does not cry. Lightning holds onto him and smiles at the boy that has wormed his way into the Sky Knight’s heart.


End file.
